Cardinal vows to end clergy sex abuse

Published Date: February 11, 2010

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Cardinal Claudio Hummes addressing the clergy conference

VAILANKANNI, India (UCAN) — The head of the Vatican’s congregation for priests says the Church condemns sex abuse by clergy and will drive out offenders.

It also wants to work more closely with victims as they deal with the consequences of the crime, he says.

“The Church cannot tolerate [clerical sex abuse] and deals with it as a serious crime,” Cardinal Claudio Hummes, prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy, told UCA News today [Feb. 11].

The 75-year-old Capuchin cardinal from Brazil was in India to attend the first national congress of the country’s Catholic priests.

Some 800 priests and several bishops from India’s three ritual Churches attended the three-day program that concluded in Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, today.

Asked how to remedy the clergy scandal, Cardinal Hummes said the Church has decided that it cannot tolerate sex abuses by priests. “The Church cannot accept such priests,” he said.

The Church will also insist on “a rigorous selection process” for priesthood candidates. It will also push for spiritual renewal of the clergy, he added.

The cardinal said the Church was “very concerned” for the victims. “The Church wants to be closer to them, offering them sympathy, solidarity and consolation,” the cardinal said.

The outspoken cardinal, who headed Sao Paulo archdiocese for eight years before taking up the Vatican post in 2008, said he was visiting India for the first time. He was “highly impressed” with the country’s “young, jovial and enthusiastic” priests.

Cardinal Hummes said he was “positively surprised” at the “well-organized” congress that conducted its sessions in “a very fraternal” and “cordial atmosphere.”

The Vatican official hailed the congress as “the most important program” for the Catholic priests in India. “Priests here are very good and the programs were very good, especially their spiritual side,” he added.

The Vatican dignitary commended India’s three ritual Churches – the Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara rites. “These various liturgical and spiritual traditions make the Church in India really beautiful,” he said.

The cardinal also noted that Indian priests have a “good spirit of prayer” and support each other.

“They have lots of interest in everything, especially in promoting interreligious and inter-cultural dialogue,” he said, but cautioned that “dialogue cannot substitute for evangelization and proclamation of the Word of God.”

In an earlier address, the cardinal noted the world had some 408,000 priests in 2008, the latest statistics available. This was an increase of 1,000 over the previous year.

He said the current observation of the Year for Priests presents the Church with an opportunity to love and respect its priests and recognize what they do for Church and society.

IA08798.1588 February 11, 2010 45 EM-lines (422 words)

Cardinal Hummes opens priests’ congress
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Religious grapple with human rights, modern culture

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Tags: Congregation for the Clergy, Scandal, Seminaries, Sex abuse

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Siluvai

Please try to find a way to avoid financial scandals in the Indian Church. There is no conscience on the part of individual priests and bishops. They hoard the money and try to earn more money.
These happen especially with some Priests from Madras Archdiocese

4unborn

" “a rigorous selection process” for priesthood candidates" must eliminate with any candidate who engaged in homosexual acts in the past or has homosexual tendencies now.

Mark Davis

The Cardinal Cladio Hummes speaks very forcefully about priests accused of sexual abuse, but what about priests who have been faely accused? He says nothing. What about bishops who are homosexual like Archbishop Quenn and Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington DC who is a homosexual He was protecting 3 priests who were sex abusers and one was his own secretary. The homosexual community laughed and called him "Donna Girl" In Pittsburgh. 'What about prelates in the Vatican? Last year there was a pre late in the Vatican working in one of the offices who was homosexual. Thr late John Cardinal Wright was a homosexual and took Wuerl another homosexual with him to be his secretary at the Congregation of the Clergy. Is the Vatican really interested in true justice when some priest has been falsely accused, or is the Cardinal only interested in using Draconian system of law---once accused you are out even if your innocent. He must remember that the USA Church paid out a lot of money to victims who claimed that they were abused without going to the Courts. I think we are all entitled to a court of law to prove our innocence and that bishops should not act as judge and jury. Some of them are dishonest only because if they were soupened to court eveything about the individual bishop would be revealed. I'm only saying, that what's the Vatican wants to Priests accused must also be done to cardinals and bishops accused of sexual abuse or who obstructs the law like Donald wuerl and Quenn.

jacques

The very root regarding abusing priests is homosexuality.
It is easy to understand since everybody knows that the abused kids are boys at 80 per cent.
The Church must get rid of active homosexuals and even of men with same sex inclinations even if they remain chaste because the risk is too high that they become active in the future. The Bible says that "homosexual acts are an abomination in the God's eyes".
How is it possible that high ranked clerics may question this teaching to the point to okay active pederasts in the priesthood?
That's an aberration. These priests, bishops and cardinals will have to answer of this evil before the Supreme Judge, not only for the evil they made to innocent boys, but for the huge scandal they loaded on the Church.
Like Christ said once: "These men would have rather not to be born", or "they deserve to be thrown into the sea from a cliff with their neck tied to a millstone"

jmikalajunas

Wonderful response. Will the cardinal also respond to the innocent priests who have been falsely accused and restore the honor to them by showing
affirmation and naming them to be domestic prelates. After all they are the dry martyrs of the church today. There are two sides to every story. What about the lavender bishops will they get rid of them also. Or is this the fault of seminaries that affirmed such people.

George Rucker Survivor

And who will restore Our HONOR those of us whom Are Disgraced by the Sexual abuse of Priest? Who will stand by our side and see to it we are not continually made out to be Outcast? Who will give me back my virginity I lost at the Hands of a Priest while attending Catholic School? I could not Marry as a Virgin can Anyone give me back My childhood and Honor? No More Secrets No More Lies. A tiny little GIRL 1st 2nd and 3rd Grade Torn apart not only my body but also my faith and my Family. Who will give that back to me?